Ultrasound imaging systems have been used to image blood vessels and provide calculations based on the imaged vessels. Typically, a blood vessel is imaged with an ultrasound system operating in B-Mode/duplex mode with color Doppler. A physician examines the displayed image of the vessel and associated Doppler strip and inputs the relevant data into a vascular calculation package on the ultrasound system. After the vascular calculation package generates a result, the physician scrolls through a lengthy list of anatomical location names to select the name corresponding to the imaged vessel. The vascular calculation package then generates a report listing the result along with the assigned vessel location name (e.g., Right Common Carotid Artery Peak Systolic Velocity=1.2 m/s).
There are several disadvantages associated with this approach. First, because the physician is required to enter data and scroll through a list of anatomical location names, the generation of the vascular report is a time-consuming process. Further, numeric data is obscure to most referring clinicians who do not have experience in interpreting ultrasound Doppler results. These clinicians rely mostly on the report conclusion, which says little about the reasons supporting the conclusion. Numeric reports are even more obscure to patients.
To provide a more intuitive and understandable report, some physicians create a hand-made graphical report to show patients. This cumbersome process involves printing a hard copy of the Doppler strip, cutting out relevant sections of the strip, hand drawing a schematic of the imaged vessel on a piece of paper, and pasting the cut-out strip onto the paper. The physician can also write in the calculations generated by the ultrasound system's report package. These hand-made reports are not only time-consuming to create, but they are also difficult to duplicate and store.
There is a need, therefore, for an ultrasound system and method that overcome the disadvantages described above.